The Picture
by T.E.Rose
Summary: Beca and Aubrey contemplate a shared experience as they stare at photos of the event.


The Perfect Picture: A Pitch Perfect Story

By: T.E. Rose

A/N: This is my first Pitch Perfect Fanfic and my first fanfic in general for some time so let me know how it went I feel a little rusty at this. I don't use a beta reader so there will undoubtedly be some grammatical and spelling errors I do proofread but I'm human and bound to miss some so sorry in advance for that hopefully it is still enjoyable in spite of them. Read and Review please.

Note: So I reread this and noticed a bunch of things I wanted to fix or change. Apparently I shouldn't try and write when I'm exhausted because the quality suffers. Not that I am under any particular delusion as to my own abilities but I do alright I guess.

XXXX

Beca released a sigh as she leaned back in her chair her hands falling away from the mixing board. It was a tired sigh though not one born out of any particular sense of frustration like one might have thought given the late hour and the fact that she was still at work. The rest of her team having long since abandon her and gone home for the evening. Not that she could really even blame them for doing so, she had not made any significant progress tonight much to her consternation. The studio, save for her, was now empty of the usual gaggle of drones that usually bustled about seeming to go out of their way to find new and creative ways to annoy her, not that it was a particularly difficult feat to accomplish in recent days.

Standing she groaned happily as she stretched going up on to her tip toes, her arms reaching towards the ceiling. It felt good, she had been sitting for the past 5 hours hunched over the sound board trying to finish the track her team had been working on all day. It was a lost cause for the moment though she was having trouble focusing on anything at this point.

Leaving the booth she locked the door behind her and proceed down the mostly dark corridors towards her small cluttered office.

Opening the door she crossed the room to her desk. It was a mass of disorganized notes and scribbles, half realized thoughts and ideas. In short it was a mess one that anyone else would have been hard pressed to find anything in. She knew it but it didn't matter to her if other people couldn't find things she knew where everything was, somehow, and that was what was important. Sitting down and cursing the lack of lumbar support that her desk chair offered she booted up her laptop preparing to write a quick email for her team the following morning. Something that grew closer and closer by the minute.

As it booted up the screens light caught the edge of a picture frame. The photograph was the only personal thing that graced the office that had been hers for the past year. She had scores of photos cataloguing her time in college as a Barden Bella but none of them were in her office. Not the one from their first ICCA nor any of the subsequent ones there were none commemorating her team's victory in the World Championship. None. Then again most people would not pegged Beca Mitchell as particularly sentimental and fewer still would have pegged her as the type do be overly emotional.

She had, for years, gone out of her way to cultivate a certain image for the people around her, to develop a mystique. It was her protection, the thorns she sported to keep people at arm's length were her armor. She did not like letting people in, she actively sought to push them away. Some inevitably tried to worm their way into her affections, some even managed it but only one had ever managed it without actually trying.

Smiling to herself Beca reached for the memento, her original intent for sitting at her desk now all but forgotten. It was a picture of Aubrey and herself, one of her absolute favorites of the pair of them, not that she would ever admit it to anyone. Not that she needed to, it was apparent without her ever saying it. Her thumb idly stroked the image of the women who had haunted her dreams ever since their time together at Barden University.

The picture had been taken during the trip that Aubrey had taken Beca home to meet her family for the first time. Beca had been nervous to say the least but it had turned out she needn't have been. Aubrey's family had been almost overwhelmingly welcoming to her, even Aubrey's oft quoted father was surprisingly jovial. Needless to say it was not at all what she had expected due to all the times Aubrey had quoted the man. She had expected him to be a gruff, no nonsense asshole but he had been almost precisely the opposite.

In the picture they were both soaked, their hair sticking to their face, Beca's mascara running and the two of them both smiling like complete fools.

The picture had been taken about 2 minutes after Mr. Posen had caught the pair of them kissing rather heatedly in the back garden and turned the hose on them, shouting something about a fire. Beca had been momentarily stunned before she had burst out laughing. Aubrey on the other hand had been somewhere between furious and indignant. At least until Beca, ignoring the continued spray of water had wrapped her arms around the neck of the sputtering blonde and pulled her into another kiss.

When she closed her eyes and thought about it she could still feel the cold spray of the hose, the warm summer sun as it kissed her skin and the sweet tenderness of Aubrey's lips. She could still hear the birds chirping, Mr. Posen's loud laughter, and the way Aubrey's breath had hitched when she'd kissed her again despite the water's continuous spray.

Smiling despite her weariness she set the photo back down in its place on her desk and began typing out an email...

XXX

Aubrey blew out a breath as she lay in bed.

She had been there for the better part of two hours trying to sleep and having no luck with it, instead she just tossed and turned. Kicking off the blanket and pulling it back up in turn trying to get comfortable and failing utterly in the endeavor. It was weird without Beca there next to her, she had grown used to having her warm presence next to her when the day drew to a close.

Giving up on getting to sleep anytime soon she decided to get up clicking on her bedside light she went to grab the book she had been reading, a particularly sappy and trashy romance novel. It wasn't there on her night stand where it was supposed to be though. Annoyed with herself she got up from bed and padded out towards the living room of the modest apartment.

She had not bothered to turn on the hall light knowing that it was clear all the way to the end table where she had left her book earlier in the evening.

That being said walking, even down a straight corridor, could be disorienting in the dark. She stretched a hand out toward the wall to help her keep her bearings. Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, the walls were not quite as empty as the hall floor. They were covered in pictures, memories.

As she carefully made her way down the hall her fingertips grazing the wall she felt them brush against the edge of a picture frame knocking it askew. Now annoyed with herself for a completely different reason Aubrey pursed her lips and continued until she reached the reason for her getting out of bed grabbing her book she made her way back to her room and climbed back into her bed.

Sitting up her legs tucked up close to her body she used them to prop her book up, resting the well-worn spine of the book in the crease of her thighs. She sat and tried to read for several minutes but found that she couldn't focus on the page she was trying to read. She had read the same paragraph at least five times now and had not taken in a word. The picture that she knew was hanging crooked on her wall kept nagging at her thoughts keeping her mind very much distracted. Growling in frustration she got up again setting her book aside. Turning on the hall light she walked the short distance to where the picture hung it's misalignment a jarring, chaotic note in an otherwise perfect melody.

As she reached to straighten the photo she took a moment to look at it. It was a picture of her and Beca, her favorite of the two of them actually. It had been taken the first time she had brought Beca home to meet her family. It had been the first time she had ever brought home her significant other and she had been so incredibly nervous about the prospect that she had nearly thrown up during the car ride from the airport.

Beca had been amazing though. It was like she had always been a part of their lives the way that she had fit in so seamlessly. She had become a part of the family almost the moment she had walked through the door.

Her dad had basically adopted her on the spot teasing her and joking with her after only a few minutes as if she had never not been a part of the family. Her mom had fussed over her like she did Aubrey and her sisters, lamenting the "ear monstrosities" and tattoos that she had the same way that Aubrey did, it had made Beca laugh and smile at her.

Her siblings had all warmed to her immediately too, both of her sisters and her brother. It had been incredible.

The afternoon that they arrived with everything going so well Aubrey had taken Beca out back to the garden ostensibly to look at the flowers but in reality she had just wanted a moment's privacy for the pair of them. Aubrey had been so relieved about how well things had turned out that she had kissed Beca rather passionately.

Her father had thought it an opportune moment to spray them with a hose and laugh about how he had been worried about a fire.

Aubrey had been on the verge of informing her father how not funny he was when Beca had just laughed it off and then pulled her in for another kiss.

The thought of that kiss still made her toes curl with pleasure. She had never been happier than she had been in that moment. When she closed her eyes and thought about it she could still feel the heat from Beca, a sharp contrast to the coolness of the water. She could feel the weight and slight pressure from Beca's arms as they circled around and pulled her down for a kiss. She could still taste the strawberry lemonade that Beca had been drinking.

She loved this photo. In it were a thousand happy memories.

Taking it down from its spot on the wall she pressed it against her chest over her heart, eyes still closed reminiscing. She stood that way for a moment until she heard a chime from her phone alerting her that she had an email. Sighing she hung the picture back in its spot on the wall and went to check her phone wondering who would be sending her an email at this time of night.

It was from Beca.

 _Bree,_

 _I miss you…_

 _I have always and will always love you._

 _Beca_

Aubrey stared at the short text for a moment. Tears beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes. They hadn't spoken in more than a week. After more than two years together they had separated. She didn't know where Beca had been staying, Aubrey suspected that the couch in Beca's cramped little office had been having that particular honor.

 _Beca,_

 _Come home please._

 _I miss you more than words can express._

 _Come home please._

 _Bree_

She didn't even remember what they had been arguing about to cause this rift that had sprung up between them, but whatever it was it hadn't been worth losing the women who had such a firm grip on her heart. She missed her desperately and wanted nothing more than to hold her in her arms again.

Sitting on the edge of her bed once more she held her phone close to her heart willing it with every fiber of her being to chime again.

Hers didn't.

Standing Aubrey all but ran to the front door of the apartment and flung it open.

Standing there in the hallway her phone held loosely in her hand was Beca, tears streaming down her face. As she wept silently.

Seeing this the tears that had been brimming in Aubrey's own eyes burst forth and she let out a single strangled sob before Beca flew to her closing the distance between them in the span of heartbeat. Beca's arms snaked around her as she buried her face against Aubrey's chest. Aubrey's own face was buried in Beca's hair as tears flowed silently down her cheeks.

"I love you Aubrey Posen." Beca whispered to the women who owned her body and soul.

"I love you Beca Mitchell." Aubrey answered just as softly holding the women who had captured her heart.

XXX

A/N: So how'd I do? I tried not to make it to obvious that something negative had occurred between our two central characters. Was I successful? Let me know, please leave me a review and let me know what you think.

Thanks: TE Rose


End file.
